The Manifesto for Change in Non League Football

8/6/2019 The Manifesto for Change in Non League Football

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The Manifesto for change in Non League footballStuart Fuller from The Ball is Round brings us a three part document on some

sensible changes needed for Non League football to continue to survive.

Non league football is the lifeblood of the game today, yet gets little attention from themedia (apart from radio shows like the excellent BBC Non League Show or the NonLeague Paper). It is not in the best of shape to put it mildly. In the past year numerousclubs have gone to the wall, with not even a batting of an eye from the Premier Leagueor the Football League. So what can we do about it? Well, we've got our headstogether and come up with our 10 point agenda for change, our manifesto if you like.

Today we launch part one covering the first three points.

1. Create standard co-operation partnership agreements between PremierLeague/Football League clubs and Non League teams.

Now this may seem like madness, but thereis significant sense in this move as theHyde/Manchester City model has shown.Last summer, after coming perilously closeto being wound up in the High Court, BlueSquare Bet South's Hyde United signed a

three year "partnership" agreement withManchester City. City would refurbish HydeUnited's Ewen Fields ground and play their Elite Squad (aka reserve) games there andin return Hyde would lose the United and change their kit from red and white to whiteand blue (with a distinctly Man City-like diagonal stripe).

Nine months on and a visit to the ground does indeed show how smart it is, resplendentwith perimeter boards for Etihad and Umbro. However on the field the team havecontinued to struggle and again this year face a tough fight against relegation. Theexcellent Ian King over at Twohundredpercent.net wrote about these odd bedfellowslast year.

So that is one example of it working, although it hasn't led to any on field success forHyde yet, which surely would have been one of the main criteria for entering into thismodel? What about other clubs then? West Ham United have played reserve games atWoodside Park, Bishops Stortford for a couple of seasons now, but do not offeranymore to the Bishops than that. Wolverhampton Wanderers likewise play theirreserve games at AFC Telford United's Bucks Head ground. But do they really addvalue to the Non League club?


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On Friday 1st April West Ham United reserves are taking on Manchester Unitedreserves at Woodside Park. Looking at recent games played between the two you couldexpect familiar names such as Faubert, Winston Reid, Kovac, Boa Morte and Sears forthe Hammers, plus Obertan, Bebe and Gibson for Manchester United. Potentially morestars on show than a respective Carling Cup match. So then why play the game at2pm? Hardly going to draw a crowd is it? So what benefit do Bishops Stortford get fromhosting the game? Very little as far as I can see.

So why not create more meaningful agreements between clubs? Surely there is scopefor a symbiotic relationship? A few Non League clubs for instance offer a 50% reductionto season ticket holders from other clubs but it is more of a token gesture. What about ifthe Premier or Football League clubs offered a discount the other way? 50% off a ticketfor West Ham if you were a Thurrock season ticket holder for instance? How hard would

it be for a professional club to get behind their local team or teams?

Just a few weeks ago we reported the saddemise of Leyton FC, formerly of theRyman League South. Their ground wasless than a mile from Leyton Orient'sMatchroom Stadium and just over 3 milesto West Ham's Upton Park. On days whenthe Hammers got 34,000, Leyton got 22people. Surely they could have donesomething to help? Ilkeston Town also

went to the wall earlier in the season, yetbizarrely their ground is still used byNottingham Forest for their reserve games.There is some logic there but I am not surewhere.

So here is my starter for ten on this issue. Every Premier and Football League team to"adopt" a non league team within 15 miles of their ground. Make the partnershipbilateral so that it simply isn't like a big brother patting the head of their annoying littlebrother. Give a little take a little. Perhaps change the colour/design of your away strip toreflect the partnership; offer half price admission to respective season ticket holders;dare I say it sell each others merchandise in the club shop (produce those half and halfscarves that were popular in the 80's such as West Ham United and Dundee United)and finally have a big pre-season friendly where the stars all play. Just little things but itwould make a hell of a difference to the Non League teams.

2. Play the County Cup matches at the end of the seasonCurrently the bizarre rules governing county football means that for the likes of Lewes, aSussex Senior Cup game against Shoreham takes priority over a league match againstsay Dartford. This leads to ridiculous fixture congestion especially in times when theweather is poor and clubs also have to try and re-arrange fixtures accordingly. Most


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Non League clubs play in three cup competitions - The FA Cup, the FA Trophy or Vase,depending on their level within the pyramid and then the county cups. Some teams, likeThamesmead Town somehow manage to squeeze in two county cups (London andKent).

The influence of the counties on the clubs is still far too powerful. In fact do a simplesearch on the structure of the Football Association and you will find that the FA Councilcontains 14 Life Vice-Presidents from the county FA's, 5 elected Vice-Presidents fromthe counties and then one representative from each county as a representative. ComeFA Cup Final day and you can understand why such a small percentage of tickets out ofthe 90,000 actually go to the clubs.

In the opening rounds of the cup nobody is really interested. Let's look at the Sussex

Senior Challenge Cup this season. Thirty Two teams were accepted in the competitionthis year, with just Brighton & Hove Albion being the sole representative from theFootball League. Just to prove how serious they were going to take it, Poyet stated atthe start of the season he would only put a reserve/development squad out for thegames. Round one saw 32 teams from the county leagues fight it out for a place withthe 16 "best" teams in the county (including Albion as well as Eastbourne Borough,Crawley Town and Lewes).

Round two saw few crowds of more than100 people. One game was the local derbybetween Shoreham and Lewes. WithLewes's new manager Tim O'Shea keen ontrying a few squad players you would haveexpected a reasonable crowd. 108 was thecrowd, including a fair few from Lewes.Competing with Ajax v Real Madrid, Bragav Arsenal and Chelsea v Zilina on TV it wasquite commendable really. But if that gamewas played at the END of the season,when the weather is good and there are noother distractions on TV, what would the

attendance have been? Two hundred? Three? Four?

Round three saw Lewes host high flying Bognor Regis Town from the Ryman LeagueSouth. Less of a distraction on this night with only Ipswich Town playing Arsenal in theCarling Cup semi-final on TV. Lewes had hosted Welling United and Eastleigh in thepast ten days with crowds of 766 and 483 respectively. With reduced price admission inplace a crowd of 181 was poor, although it was the second biggest crowd of the roundbehind the 283 at Eastbourne Borough (about 30% of their normal crowd).


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Now don't tell me that playing the competition at the end of the season isn't possible asin late February the Sussex FA announced the Final of this year's competition would beplayed at the brand new Amex Community Stadium...In mid July! Why was this asurprise? Well in mid January the very same FA had publically announced such anidea couldn't happen as they were unhappy with the financial arrangements anddelaying the final, which is usually held at Eastbourne Borough in May. So guess whatchanged their minds?

Sussex County Football Association chairman Peter Bentley added: We are delightedto be invited to the Amex to play the final. It will provide a great occasion for the playersand fans of the clubs who reach the final."

All of a sudden the eight teams left in the competition start taking it seriously.

3. Be more flexible about when the league endsRecent seasons have seen some teams playing 4 or 5 games a week due to the poorwinter weather and good cup runs. Alfreton Town, in second place in the Blue SquareBet North have 7 games in hand on leaders Nuneaton due to weather and cup runs inFA Trophy and are just one point behind. Likewise in the Blue Square Bet Premierleaders Crawley Town's reward for reaching the fifth round of the FA Cup was fivegames in hand on AFC Wimbledon.

Last season the Isthmian League were

steadfast in their decision not to extendtheir season past 24th April 2010, despitethe fact that teams like Wealdstone had tocram in 7 games in 14 days towards theback end of the season. They went intothe period within touching distance of thePlay Offs, and came out the other sidefalling short. A game every two daysobviously has a massive impact. Anotherleague, the Wessex League, decreed thatif both clubs were in agreement they could

actually simply not play the game andsettle for a 0-0 draw.

The Isthmian's official line was that the season had to finish then because:-

The league must be completed by a certain date (24th April 2010) to enable championsto be decided, end of season play offs to take place and to allow time for the numerousother administrative tasks to take place


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So much so in fact that they took nearly two months to decide whether Borehamwoodwould indeed be promoted after the disgraceful incident of the fan appearing to strike aKingstonian player on the pitch at the play off final in the end saw them unpunished.

So why then is it acceptable for the Premier League and the Football League to playinto mid-May then? Surely the administrative burden is similar.

So in the case of a club having a number of games cancelled due to the bad weather,they have to cram them all in in a short period of time, meaning in some cases twomidweek games a week. Who is the winner in this instance? The players? I dont thinkso. combining a full time job in most cases with part time football is going to put a strainon them physically and even financially if they have to take time off from their paidemployment to play for their club.

What about the fans? How many canafford, in the total sense to go to threegames a week? I am lucky I have anunderstanding wife (God bless CMF) and adaughter who loves any football, but I amnot the norm. So fans will not be preparedto come out for two games during theweek, and thus attendances will suffer. Asattendances suffer, so too do the clubs asthe gate revenue will be lower, yet theircost base will still be the same and thusputting more financial pressure on them.

Read more of Stuarts ideas in part 2 and 3 of his Blue Print

Documents

The Manifesto for Change in Non League Football